Today’s hike was a bit shorter than usual (although we still did 5 miles – and the first couple were REALLY, REALLY hard!) – we decided to hike on Sunday afternoon – Kirk had a memorial to attend and I worked on one of the rental houses on Saturday. It worked out pretty well. The plan was to investigate the lower portion of the Cripple Creek trail to see if any of it survived the fires. We had looked a couple years ago but it was summertime and all the brush was in full bloom so it was hard to see anything. All the brush is now dead/hibernating so it makes it easier to see tread.

We started out about noon and headed down from the Cripple creek trailhead. This portion didn’t really burn too much although the cutting along pipeline road affected it a bit. There was some downed stuff we had to climb over but it wasn’t too bad. We soon got down to the old railroad grade which was pretty easy walking – that goes thru unburnt and burnt areas as it heads around the knob above it. We soon got to the spot where the trail took off from the road. We found this a few years ago but it quickly disappeared into the brush and we kind of gave up. Today we kept looking – we did sort of follow tread here and there – there is a lot of blackberry vines growing which make for tough movement. My hands are all scratched up and the dogs were struggling as well.

We got to a spot where the trail headed down a short ridge and then turned. It was at this point we found the best tread we saw all day. Where the trail turned, you got a good look at what I termed the the little Cripple Creek Canyon:

I walked as far over the edge as I dared and took this photo – it was VERY steep down to the creek:

At this point, the trail had a switchback and we turned to find relatively untouched tread:

That didn’t last too long – at some point it did another switch down the hill and disappeared. We looked for remnants of tread but didn’t really find anything – we worked our way downhill and turned around to see this cool rock outcropping – this is where we were a bit earlier – it shows how steep that is:

We worked our way using an old track trying to mostly follow the route but didn’t really see any old tread. We worked our way down to the old road and bridge that crossed cripple creek (I should have taken a picture of the bridge). This area is FILLED with LOTS of blackberry canes – we got pretty scratched up getting thru it all.

Once at the bridge, I did not want to cross it – it was pretty sketchy. Kirk decided he was going to try and cross on one of the still intact logs. He made it across and so did Ollie (Ollie is pretty graceful crossing stuff like that). They looked around on the other side while Thor and I stayed on this side – we ate a bit of lunch in the sunshine. After Kirk got done looking around on the south side of the creek, he crossed back over and had some lunch.

After eating for a bit I started to get cold so we quickly packed up and headed back. I really didn’t want to go back the way we came so we decided to follow a deer trail that pretty much went straight up the hill to the old railroad grade. It wasn’t easy, but it was easier than doing the sidehill/blackberry scramble we had done coming in. We soon got back to the grade and followed it around and back to the wash that took us back up to pipeline road.

Once back at the regular trailhead, the plan was to head up the trail as far as we could before we needed to turn around. We were hoping to get into some snow. We were happy to see that the beginning of the trail has been mostly fixed – after they did all the cutting along pipeline road the beginning of the trail up to the first switchback was pretty much obliterated. While it isn’t quite as good as it used to be it is entirely hikeable again:

This area on the trail is incredibly brushy since there is no tree cover at all. There was some detritus on the trail – we threw some stuff off the trail and hacked back some of the blackberries. After we rounded the first switchback we encountered a whole lot of downed logs and branches. We cleared what we could and made passage around a big rootball that came up. While it still needs more work, it is quite a bit better than it was. More trees will probably some down this winter.

Once past the little saddle that was always kind of indistinct, things started getting a bit better. This area still burned with 100% mortality, but the tread was in better shape:

We continued up trail, doing minor maintenance and hacking back the worst of the blackberry vines. In the rockslides the poison oak has REALLY blossomed since the fire and will be a rough area to get thru in the summer. At least today it was dormant.

We went around a few switchbacks and I took this shot shortly before the hillside meadow – the tread in here was actually pretty good – not too brushy most places:

Just below the meadow is “The Grotto” – since the fires it has accumulated a fair bit of woody debris:

The trail near the grotto is a bit rough too as lots of brush, etc have grown up. Once past that, the tread improves again until you come into the unique hillside meadow:

There was LOTS of sign of deer, etc on the trail – lots of hoofprints in the mud. We walked thru the meadow and since we had hit our turnaround time we decided to head back. Going back down was quite a bit easier than going up due to all the work we had done on the way up. We got back down to the truck about 4:30 – we packed and and before we left, we decided to eat our “victory carrot cake” that a woman from my church had given me since I skipped coffee hour to go hiking. It was DELICIOUS!

We capped the day at Time Travelers – a great way to end the day. It was sad to see the lower section of Cripple Creek effectively obliterated but at least now we know.